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UPDATE: Clamp snapped in circus accident, officials say

MICHELLE R. SMITH, Associated Press

Published: Monday, May 5, 2014 at 1:00 a.m.

Last Modified: Monday, May 5, 2014 at 9:26 a.m.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - UPDATE...Investigators looking into why eight circus acrobats plummeted to the ground during an aerial hair-hanging stunt have found that a clamp snapped, a public safety official said Monday.

"We have identified a clamp that snapped that held them to the rafters, and it failed," Providence Public Safety Commissioner Steven Pare told WPRO-AM a day after a support frame collapsed during the Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey circus.

Three of the acrobats remained in critical condition Monday morning. Several performers on the ground also were injured. None of the injuries appear to be life-threatening, according to Stephen Payne, a spokesman for Feld Entertainment, the parent company of Ringling Bros.

"They've used this act many times. Unfortunately this particular clamp failed. It snapped off. We have it, we're analyzing it, we're seeing why it happened to ensure it doesn't happen in the future. That's all part of our focus," Pare told WPRO.

The act is part of the "Legends" show, during which performers hang "like a human chandelier" using their hair.

Investigators from the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration are probing the accident, along with local authorities.

Eight of the injured were members of the circus' Medeiros troupe, and are from the United States, Brazil, Bulgaria and Ukraine, according to the circus's website.

A spokeswoman for Rhode Island Hospital said performers Dayana Costa, Julissa Segrera and Stefany Neves were in critical condition Monday morning. Viktoriya Medeiros and Viktorila Liakhova were listed in serious condition, while Samantha Pitard, Svitlana Balanicheva and Widny Nevas were listed in good condition.

The names and conditions of three others injured in the accident had not been released.

The accident was reported about 45 minutes into the circus' 11 a.m. Sunday performance at the Dunkin' Donuts Center. It was witnessed by an audience of about 3,900, many of them children.

Payne said the metal-frame apparatus from which the performers were hanging came free from the metal truss to which it was connected. The eight women fell 25 to 40 feet, landing on the dancer below.

Roman Garcia, general manager of the Legends show, asked people to pray for the performers.

"Everybody's doing fine, everybody's at the hospital, everybody's conscious, everybody's doing pretty well," he said at the Dunkin' Donuts Center less than two hours after the accident.

The hair-hanging stunt is described on the circus' website as a "larger-than-life act" featuring eight female performers.

Payne said all the performers have been doing "some variation of this act for some time," though he didn't know how long. The current incarnation of the act began in January with the launch of the show, and performers have been doing it a dozen times a week since, he said.

"These 'hairialists' perform a combination of choreography and cut-ups including spinning, hanging from hoops, and rolling down wrapped silks, all while being suspended 35 feet in the air by their hair alone," the website says. "In this hair-raising act, audiences will even see the weight of three girls held aloft by the locks of only one of these tangled beauties."

Video taken by audience members shows a curtain dropping to reveal several performers hanging from an apparatus suspended from above. Seconds later, as they begin to perform, the women fall, and the metal apparatus lands on them.

"It just went crashing down," said audience member Sydney Bragg, 14, of North Kingstown. "Everyone was freaking out. We heard this huge clatter and then we just heard the girls scream."

She said spotlights were on the performers at the time, but all the lights went out after the fall.

Rosa Viveiros of Seekonk, Massachusetts, said she saw that the acrobats had fallen on top of at least one other performer below, a man who stood up with his face bloodied. The acrobats remained still and did not get up, she said.

"We thought it was part of the circus," said her husband, Joe.

The couple attended the circus with their 6-year-old grandson and 9-year-old niece.

"Everyone was in shock," Rosa Viveiros said. "It was pretty overwhelming to see that."

The circus began performances in Providence on Friday. Monday's shows were canceled, as were two on Sunday.

Payne said the circus was working with federal and local officials to find out what went wrong and correct any problems that might exist.

"We want to make sure all of our performers are safe," he said Monday. "An accident like this is unprecedented involving this number of performers. We're just grateful that as of now, none of the injuries appear to be life-threatening.

Payne said Kenneth Feld, the chief executive of Feld Entertainment, and his daughter Nicole, a circus producer, flew to Providence on Sunday night and was at the hospital visiting with the performers.

A Ringling Bros. aerial performer was killed in 2004 in St. Paul, Minnesota, when she was twirling 30 feet in the air on long chiffon scarves and the material gave way.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- A support frame collapsed during an aerial hair-hanging stunt at a Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circus performance Sunday, sending eight acrobats plummeting to the ground.

Nine performers were seriously injured in the fall, including a dancer below.

The accident was reported about 45 minutes into the circus' 11 a.m. Legends show at the Dunkin' Donuts Center in Providence.

Stephen Payne, a spokesman for Feld Entertainment, the Ellenton-based parent company of the circus, said the accident happened during an act in which eight performers hang “like a human chandelier” using their hair.

He said the metal-frame apparatus from which the performers were hanging came free from the metal truss to which it was connected. The eight women fell 25 to 40 feet, landing on a dancer on the ground.

Providence Public Safety Commissioner Steven Pare said officials and inspectors have not yet determined what caused the accident. He said none of the injuries appears to be life-threatening.

A widely broadcast video of the accident stunned viewers, including Nik Wallenda — the high-wire walker from the Sarasota area who has gained worldwide acclaim for his dangerous stunts, including a televised walk across the Grand Canyon.

“Rigging is the key component,” Wallenda said. “Rarely are accidents in the hands of the performers; I would say 90 percent of deaths in the circus are due to rigging. In this case, we do know clearly there was a rigging failure.”

The Ringling Bros. website describes the Medeiros Hair Hang Act as a “the brainchild of husband and wife team Andre and Viktoria Medeiros. . . . Together (they) have devised and improved the mechanisms and methods making possible the myriad of maneuvers this troupe will perform for audiences.

“It is Andre's attention to every detail, even welding the three different rigs that the girls hang from, that keeps his troupe safe and sound,” according to ringling.com.

Rhode Island Hospital confirmed to CNN that each of the eight women named by Ringling Bros. as part of the act were in the hospital: Dayana Costa, Svitlana Balanicheva, Viktorila Liakhova, Viktoriya Medeiros, Widny Neves, Stefany Neves, Samantha Pitard and Julissa Segrera.

Payne said he was unable to confirm that list of patients — nor would he say which, if any, of the performers live in the Sarasota-Manatee area.

“Everyone at Feld Entertainment, all our thoughts and prayers are with these performers and their families,” Payne said.

“Clearly, everyone is upset by this,” Payne said. “We want to make sure the injured are receiving the very best of care and that their families know the circus family is behind them.”

The current Ringling Bros. show was not rehearsed at the company's new headquarters and operations center in Ellenton, Payne said.

Instead, the show was rehearsed at the Tampa Fairgrounds, where it has been for a number of years, Payne said.

“The first Ringling show to be rehearsed in Ellenton will be this December," Payne said.

Wallenda said he does not know any of the performers but that the accident struck a nerve after he watched a video of it.

“Was it preventable? Who knows?” Wallenda said. “But something needs to be mandated on a federal level and I've been pushing for this for a long time. Very few people in our industry are certified, and I've seen too much negligence or lack of knowledge about rigging over the years.”

All the performers have been doing “some variation of this act for some time,” Payne said, though he did not know how long. The current incarnation of the act began in January with the launch of the show, he said.

Roman Garcia, general manager of the Legends show, asked people to pray for the performers.

“Everybody's doing fine, everybody's at the hospital, everybody's conscious, everybody's doing pretty well," he said at the Dunkin' Donuts Center less than two hours after the accident.

Video taken by audience members showed a curtain coming down, and several performers hanging around 25 feet in the air from an apparatus suspended from above. Seconds later, as they began to perform, the women fall and the metal apparatus lands on them.

“It just went crashing down," said audience member Sydney Bragg, 14, of North Kingstown. “Everyone was freaking out. We heard this huge clatter and then we just heard the girls scream."

She said spotlights were on the performers at the time, but all the lights went out after the fall.

Rosa Viveiros of Seekonk, Mass., said she saw that the acrobats had fallen on top of at least one other performer on the ground, a man who stood up with his face bloodied. The acrobats remained still and did not get up, she said.

“We thought it was part of the circus," said her husband, Joe.

The couple attended the circus with their 6-year-old grandson and 9-year-old niece.

“Everyone was in shock,” Rosa Viveiros said. “It was pretty overwhelming to see that.”

The circus began performances in Providence on Friday. The Dunkin' Donuts Center canceled two shows scheduled for later Sunday.

A Ringling Bros. aerial performer was killed in 2004 in St. Paul, Minn., when she was twirling 30 feet in the air on long chiffon scarves and the material gave way.

The Ringling circus continues to have historic and lasting ties to the Sarasota area.

In 1927, John and Charles Ringling moved the winter quarters of their circus from Bridgeport, Conn., to Sarasota.

In 1961, the circus moved its winter headquarters again. It resettled in Venice, where it started its well-known Clown College.

Feld Entertainment acquired the circus in 1967.

In 1992, after negotiations to improve the railroad failed, the circus moved from Venice to Tampa.

In 2013, Feld Entertainment settled into its new corporate headquarters in Ellenton — where it has said it expects to eventually employ about 400 to 500 by the end of 2014.

In Ellenton, Feld is rehearsing for a new show, Marvel Universe Live. Later this summer, the complex will house rehearsals of a new Disney on Ice show.

<p><em>PROVIDENCE, R.I.</em> - <i>UPDATE...</i>Investigators looking into why eight circus acrobats plummeted to the ground during an aerial hair-hanging stunt have found that a clamp snapped, a public safety official said Monday.</p><p>"We have identified a clamp that snapped that held them to the rafters, and it failed," Providence Public Safety Commissioner Steven Pare told WPRO-AM a day after a support frame collapsed during the Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey circus.</p><p>Three of the acrobats remained in critical condition Monday morning. Several performers on the ground also were injured. None of the injuries appear to be life-threatening, according to Stephen Payne, a spokesman for Feld Entertainment, the parent company of Ringling Bros.</p><p>"They've used this act many times. Unfortunately this particular clamp failed. It snapped off. We have it, we're analyzing it, we're seeing why it happened to ensure it doesn't happen in the future. That's all part of our focus," Pare told WPRO.</p><p>The act is part of the "Legends" show, during which performers hang "like a human chandelier" using their hair.</p><p>Investigators from the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration are probing the accident, along with local authorities.</p><p>Eight of the injured were members of the circus' Medeiros troupe, and are from the United States, Brazil, Bulgaria and Ukraine, according to the circus's website.</p><p>A spokeswoman for Rhode Island Hospital said performers Dayana Costa, Julissa Segrera and Stefany Neves were in critical condition Monday morning. Viktoriya Medeiros and Viktorila Liakhova were listed in serious condition, while Samantha Pitard, Svitlana Balanicheva and Widny Nevas were listed in good condition.</p><p>The names and conditions of three others injured in the accident had not been released.</p><p>The accident was reported about 45 minutes into the circus' 11 a.m. Sunday performance at the Dunkin' Donuts Center. It was witnessed by an audience of about 3,900, many of them children.</p><p>Payne said the metal-frame apparatus from which the performers were hanging came free from the metal truss to which it was connected. The eight women fell 25 to 40 feet, landing on the dancer below.</p><p>Roman Garcia, general manager of the Legends show, asked people to pray for the performers.</p><p>"Everybody's doing fine, everybody's at the hospital, everybody's conscious, everybody's doing pretty well," he said at the Dunkin' Donuts Center less than two hours after the accident.</p><p>The hair-hanging stunt is described on the circus' website as a "larger-than-life act" featuring eight female performers.</p><p>Payne said all the performers have been doing "some variation of this act for some time," though he didn't know how long. The current incarnation of the act began in January with the launch of the show, and performers have been doing it a dozen times a week since, he said.</p><p>"These 'hairialists' perform a combination of choreography and cut-ups including spinning, hanging from hoops, and rolling down wrapped silks, all while being suspended 35 feet in the air by their hair alone," the website says. "In this hair-raising act, audiences will even see the weight of three girls held aloft by the locks of only one of these tangled beauties."</p><p>Video taken by audience members shows a curtain dropping to reveal several performers hanging from an apparatus suspended from above. Seconds later, as they begin to perform, the women fall, and the metal apparatus lands on them.</p><p>"It just went crashing down," said audience member Sydney Bragg, 14, of North Kingstown. "Everyone was freaking out. We heard this huge clatter and then we just heard the girls scream."</p><p>She said spotlights were on the performers at the time, but all the lights went out after the fall.</p><p>Rosa Viveiros of Seekonk, Massachusetts, said she saw that the acrobats had fallen on top of at least one other performer below, a man who stood up with his face bloodied. The acrobats remained still and did not get up, she said.</p><p>"We thought it was part of the circus," said her husband, Joe.</p><p>The couple attended the circus with their 6-year-old grandson and 9-year-old niece.</p><p>"Everyone was in shock," Rosa Viveiros said. "It was pretty overwhelming to see that."</p><p>The circus began performances in Providence on Friday. Monday's shows were canceled, as were two on Sunday.</p><p>Payne said the circus was working with federal and local officials to find out what went wrong and correct any problems that might exist.</p><p>"We want to make sure all of our performers are safe," he said Monday. "An accident like this is unprecedented involving this number of performers. We're just grateful that as of now, none of the injuries appear to be life-threatening.</p><p>Payne said Kenneth Feld, the chief executive of Feld Entertainment, and his daughter Nicole, a circus producer, flew to Providence on Sunday night and was at the hospital visiting with the performers.</p><p>A Ringling Bros. aerial performer was killed in 2004 in St. Paul, Minnesota, when she was twirling 30 feet in the air on long chiffon scarves and the material gave way.</p><p>___</p><p><i>Associated Press writers Pat Eaton-Robb in Hartford, Conn., Josh Cornfield in Philadelphia and Jessica Gresko in Washington contributed to this report.</i></p><p><hr /></p><p><i>ORIGINAL...</i></p><p>Staff and wire reports</p><p>PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- A support frame collapsed during an aerial hair-hanging stunt at a Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circus performance Sunday, sending eight acrobats plummeting to the ground.</p><p>Nine performers were seriously injured in the fall, including a dancer below.</p><p>The accident was reported about 45 minutes into the circus' 11 a.m. Legends show at the Dunkin' Donuts Center in Providence.</p><p>Stephen Payne, a spokesman for Feld Entertainment, the Ellenton-based parent company of the circus, said the accident happened during an act in which eight performers hang “like a human chandelier” using their hair.</p><p>He said the metal-frame apparatus from which the performers were hanging came free from the metal truss to which it was connected. The eight women fell 25 to 40 feet, landing on a dancer on the ground.</p><p>Providence Public Safety Commissioner Steven Pare said officials and inspectors have not yet determined what caused the accident. He said none of the injuries appears to be life-threatening.</p><p>A widely broadcast video of the accident stunned viewers, including Nik Wallenda — the high-wire walker from the Sarasota area who has gained worldwide acclaim for his dangerous stunts, including a televised walk across the Grand Canyon.</p><p>“Rigging is the key component,” Wallenda said. “Rarely are accidents in the hands of the performers; I would say 90 percent of deaths in the circus are due to rigging. In this case, we do know clearly there was a rigging failure.”</p><p>The Ringling Bros. website describes the Medeiros Hair Hang Act as a “the brainchild of husband and wife team Andre and Viktoria Medeiros. . . . Together (they) have devised and improved the mechanisms and methods making possible the myriad of maneuvers this troupe will perform for audiences.</p><p>“It is Andre's attention to every detail, even welding the three different rigs that the girls hang from, that keeps his troupe safe and sound,” according to ringling.com.</p><p>Rhode Island Hospital confirmed to CNN that each of the eight women named by Ringling Bros. as part of the act were in the hospital: Dayana Costa, Svitlana Balanicheva, Viktorila Liakhova, Viktoriya Medeiros, Widny Neves, Stefany Neves, Samantha Pitard and Julissa Segrera.</p><p>Payne said he was unable to confirm that list of patients — nor would he say which, if any, of the performers live in the Sarasota-Manatee area.</p><p>“Everyone at Feld Entertainment, all our thoughts and prayers are with these performers and their families,” Payne said.</p><p>Feld company chairman and chief executive Kenneth Feld and his daughter Nicole Feld, who oversees the Ringling organization, “are en route to Providence now,” Payne said Sunday evening.</p><p>“Clearly, everyone is upset by this,” Payne said. “We want to make sure the injured are receiving the very best of care and that their families know the circus family is behind them.”</p><p>The current Ringling Bros. show was not rehearsed at the company's new headquarters and operations center in Ellenton, Payne said.</p><p>Instead, the show was rehearsed at the Tampa Fairgrounds, where it has been for a number of years, Payne said.</p><p>“The first Ringling show to be rehearsed in Ellenton will be this December," Payne said.</p><p>Wallenda said he does not know any of the performers but that the accident struck a nerve after he watched a video of it.</p><p>“Was it preventable? Who knows?” Wallenda said. “But something needs to be mandated on a federal level and I've been pushing for this for a long time. Very few people in our industry are certified, and I've seen too much negligence or lack of knowledge about rigging over the years.”</p><p>All the performers have been doing “some variation of this act for some time,” Payne said, though he did not know how long. The current incarnation of the act began in January with the launch of the show, he said.</p><p>Roman Garcia, general manager of the Legends show, asked people to pray for the performers.</p><p>“Everybody's doing fine, everybody's at the hospital, everybody's conscious, everybody's doing pretty well," he said at the Dunkin' Donuts Center less than two hours after the accident.</p><p>Video taken by audience members showed a curtain coming down, and several performers hanging around 25 feet in the air from an apparatus suspended from above. Seconds later, as they began to perform, the women fall and the metal apparatus lands on them.</p><p>“It just went crashing down," said audience member Sydney Bragg, 14, of North Kingstown. “Everyone was freaking out. We heard this huge clatter and then we just heard the girls scream."</p><p>She said spotlights were on the performers at the time, but all the lights went out after the fall.</p><p>Rosa Viveiros of Seekonk, Mass., said she saw that the acrobats had fallen on top of at least one other performer on the ground, a man who stood up with his face bloodied. The acrobats remained still and did not get up, she said.</p><p>“We thought it was part of the circus," said her husband, Joe.</p><p>The couple attended the circus with their 6-year-old grandson and 9-year-old niece.</p><p>“Everyone was in shock,” Rosa Viveiros said. “It was pretty overwhelming to see that.”</p><p>The circus began performances in Providence on Friday. The Dunkin' Donuts Center canceled two shows scheduled for later Sunday.</p><p>A Ringling Bros. aerial performer was killed in 2004 in St. Paul, Minn., when she was twirling 30 feet in the air on long chiffon scarves and the material gave way.</p><p>The Ringling circus continues to have historic and lasting ties to the Sarasota area.</p><p>In 1927, John and Charles Ringling moved the winter quarters of their circus from Bridgeport, Conn., to Sarasota.</p><p>In 1961, the circus moved its winter headquarters again. It resettled in Venice, where it started its well-known Clown College.</p><p>Feld Entertainment acquired the circus in 1967.</p><p>In 1992, after negotiations to improve the railroad failed, the circus moved from Venice to Tampa.</p><p>In 2013, Feld Entertainment settled into its new corporate headquarters in Ellenton — where it has said it expects to eventually employ about 400 to 500 by the end of 2014.</p><p>In Ellenton, Feld is rehearsing for a new show, Marvel Universe Live. Later this summer, the complex will house rehearsals of a new Disney on Ice show.</p><p><i>The Associated Press and Herald-Tribune staff writers Billy Cox, Michael Pollick and Dale White contributed to this report.</i></p>